A/N: This chapter really brings out my inner medical research geek and hints at my love for the book, Flowers for Algernon, which was one of my inspirations for this story. Enjoy!
Artie kept to his word about not calling Ohio State to cancel his appointment to talk about the procedure with the people actually behind it, and I kept my word about 'finishing this later', so everything was okay in our little neck of the woods. However, when the day came to take the eighty-two mile trip a quarter across Ohio, I became nervous. My decision was made about the procedure, and what kind of person would I be to go back on my word after all of our drama, but I still feared the unknown.
When we started living together, Artie's family generously handed over the family van with all the fixtures that made traveling with a person in a wheelchair safer and easier for everyone involved. From then on, the removable passenger seat lived in the trunk with all of the spare blankets and emergency supplies.
"All set?" I asked as I watched him fasten the fourth Q-straint around the frame of his wheelchair.
"All cargo is secure and ready for takeoff," he confirmed, sitting up straight, and saluting.
I stared at him from the corners of my eyes before giggling to myself, shaking my head as I shifted the car into reverse.
We drove in silence for the most part with the exception of Artie sweetly humming along to whatever came on the radio. Sometimes if it was a song I knew well, I'd peak in sometimes with a harmony. Life of an Alto.
Ohio State University Hospital, or Medical Center according to the stainless steel lettering atop the main building, was a bigger looking hospital than I was used to. Just from the outside, it looked at least twice the size of Lima General. As I drove though the campus filled with grass plots and brick sidewalks, I began to feel almost intimidated.
The interior didn't make me feel any better. The waiting room, where Artie was asked to fill out a stack of paper work, was cluttered with sick and injured people and their families. As I sat in one of the gray plastic chairs provided, Artie arranged his wheelchair at angle next to me, for all of the end seats were taken. I watched him fill out the forms, and answered the questions in my head as he scribbled them down in pen. When my nerves started to get to me, I leaned forward and slipped my hand around his bicep as he wrote. The muscles beneath my fingertips that contracted with every shift of his pen came to a sudden stop.
"You okay?" he asked, laying the clipboard flat in his lap.
I nodded with half a smile, squeezing his arm.
"I'm a little nervous too," he whispered. Stretching the arm I had my hand around out towards me, he rested his hand, palm up on my knee. With almost a full smile, I retracted my hand from his bicep and laced my fingers between his.
Artie turned to the next page on the clipboard and continued writing with his opposite hand. Not long after, a man and a woman approached us. The man was of Asian decent with dark hair and almost shaped eyes. He was a tall and lean man with a white coat and circles under his eyes. The woman was dressed in more of a casual appeal, black pants and a light blue button down shirt that was cuffed at her elbows. She was a pale woman with a pretty face and red hair that was evenly cut a little below her shoulders. They walked side by side, and once they were close enough, I was able to make out the words on the man's plastic name tag that was clipped to his breast pocked; Dr. Ian Chang. Neurology.
"Arthur Abrams?" The man asked, stopping before us.
"Call me Artie," he politely requested with a nod.
"Hello, Artie," he said holding out his hand. "My name's Dr. Ian Chang and I'm head of the neurology department here at Ohio State, and this is my college, Dr. Sally Miller who is the brains of the trial."
"Nice to meet you," he said, shaking their hands one after another.
"How about we take this upstairs," Dr. Miller said to Dr. Chang "Percy's in my office"
"Of course. Artie, if you'll just follow me…"
"Wait," Artie said, not moving an inch and squeezing my hand.
"This is my girlfriend, Tina. We've been together since high school and she's really scared about this whole thing. She deserves to know what's going on too," Artie rambled. "Can she come too?"
The doctors exchanged glances. "I don't see why not."
Artie took awake his hand to operate his wheelchair behind the two doctors. I walked beside him, and while no one else was looking, I bent at the waist and pecked his freshly shaved cheek. He looked up at me with his curled upper-lipped smile and turned inwards to nudge me with his chair. Some things never change.
We were led to the office of Dr. Miller. The walls had a blue vertical striped wallpaper pattern, and all of the furniture was dark oak. On the heating system against the three open windows that faced the courtyard was an orchid plant sunbathing. On her desk were a couple picture frames, a laptop, a three-ring binder stuffed with papers, and a cage fit for a small rodent.
Dr. Miller extended her am out to a few chair, and I sat down accordingly. She took the binder off her desk and placed it in Artie's lap before explaining the procedure in greater detail. Until the surgery itself to engineer the circuit in his spinal cord, Artie was going to be put on a medication with Chrondroitinase, an enzyme, as the main ingredient to partially remove the scar tissue over time from his initial injury, and keep it away until the new portion of spinal cord is mature enough to be inserted. Vitamin B12 was also recommended. Another appointment had to be scheduled to take cells from his spinal cord to be grown in a laboratory into a mold called a scaffold. It seemed so simple, yet so complicated at the same time, but Artie seemed to understand enough to nod along as he flipped though the binder in his lap.
"Artie, I want you to meet Percy," Dr. Miller said standing up, and walking over to her desk to the cage. "This little guy was one of our first successful attempts at the procedure."
Percy was a white rat with brownish-black patches, and was asleep in the corner of his little enclosed home with his pink tail curled around his body. Compared to the rat I once found in the bathtub of the house I grew up in, this one seemed pretty tame. Almost, dare I say, cute?
"Successful trials were also done on dogs, rabbits, and chimpanzees, but Percy lives with me, and was an easier specimen to bring into work as a living, breathing example."
"I'm sure he's not very good with the rent," Artie joked.
"So it is safe," I peeped, covering up Artie's word vomit.
"That's what we want to find out. If everything goes well, and we can get Artie here walking again, the approach to treating spinal cord injuries will be changed forever."
"I-I'm in," Artie softly said.
"Are you sure, Art?" I asked. He shot me a glance. "I'm just asking."
"I'm sure. If it can't help me…it'll be the start to helping other people."